


Truth Is Rarely Simple

by Mercale



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Gen, M/M, Sadstuck, Unrequited Love, one sided feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 10:10:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercale/pseuds/Mercale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat has red feelings for Dave, but he knows it will never work out. But Dave's attention is elsewhere, meaning Karkat really doesn't have much of a chance. It wouldn't be fair either, not loving an immortal god when he's going to die young. No, all he can do is be the Knight that saves the Knight from pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truth Is Rarely Simple

**Author's Note:**

  * For [popqueen54321](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=popqueen54321).



> Tumblr user popqueen54321 was the last of the Homestuck Secret Santas for 2012. In addition to my original four users, I took on another two to help them get gifts. Popqueen’s was one of the last that I had a chance at, and when the prompt came up I KNEW what to do with it. If you remember my previous fic Simple Truths (Knight Shipping), then this might be familiar to you. It’s meant to pair with that previous work.

It is easy, almost too easy, to hate Dave Strider. He's egotistical. His sense of humor is pretty shitty. He invests far too much time into perfecting his drum bleed inducing 'sick fires.' He's obviously flushed for Terezi.

All of it adds up to a single simple truth: it is far too easy for Karkat Vantas to hate the human known as Dave Strider.

Except the truth isn't often simple, right? Like there was the truth that Alternia was gone, but the more complex truth was that a reflection of the world known as Beforus was gone. Terezi was blind, that was true, but it was more true that she could see things that Karkat couldn't. Like he controlled his moirail but the moirail was uncontrollable. Things that were taken as absolute truths were rarely ever simple, and only partially true.

Dave Strider was the ideal kind of guy for Karkat to hate. Sure, there had been a time where Karkat had thought that his kismesis was fated to be the waste of gray matter that was John Egbert, but the truth was that guy was way too nice to hate, he was practically born to be culled by an imperial drone. There had also been a point where Karkat had been certain that due to time warping powers of the Trollian client, he was fated to be his own kismesis, but even that hadn't worked out due to the efforts of Jade and the need to commiserate with himself over his failure to gain the attention of his flushcrush, Terezi. But no, when Dave had come to the meteor, he'd been certain, absolutely certain, that this was it. This was his fate, to hate Dave Strider with a black passion that could devour even the green sun with its fury. Hate him for how he stole Terezi's attention. Hate him for his fumbling attempts at wooing her. Hate him for his shitty music and stupid cape and fucking immortality.

He should hate Dave Strider with every stray fiber of his being.

So why was it that when he saw the arrogant, shaded fuck, his pusher started to ache with an entirely different feeling that could only be described as far redder than he ever would have wanted? Why did he pity Dave Strider so?

The problem was that all of the reasons that he hated Dave were doubling back on themselves, burning with a hate so deep that it rolled right back around to pity for just how deluded the fool was. The ego, Karkat knew, was only a cover to hide the fact that Strider was scared of the fact that he wasn't nearly so competent or heroic as his other friends. His humor was shitty as a deliberate stab at shitty humor and stereotypes, which meant that he didn't really have enough experience with life to know that stereotypes existed because they were based on something real and visceral. The attempts he made at creating the sickest of fires were an attempt to reconnect with the guardian he had lost in the chaos of their doomed existence. And his red feelings for Terezi... well maybe they really weren't there at all.

But no, that wasn't the biggest problem with it all. Not even close to being it. The biggest problem was when he looked at Dave, wandering through the dream bubbles and trying to make something lasting that people would look to a a moment of brilliance, it was nothing more than an attempt to be relevant in all of this. Because he wasn't. The only one that was in this not-time, not-space, was Rose. She knew the secrets, the answers, the future when she looked at all of the likely possibilities. The rest of them, they were only here to stand around and wish that they were already there so that things could happen. Okay, so no, that wasn't the only purpose Karkat had. He also had to keep his murderous clown moirail sane so that they all didn't wake up dead—which was surprisingly a thing you could actually do, who knew?

Anyway, the problem was that Dave was trying his hardest to be important in a time and place where they couldn't be. It was pathetic, and so like Karkat that he couldn't help but pity Dave for it. Pity his stupid face, his stupid shades, his stupid irony, everything about him.

What was the point of it, though? If Dave wasn't a fucking retard and he didn't do something so pointless and heroic as throwing away his life for the sake of someone else, well, then he would live forever. Possibly even longer than forever with him being a time god. But Karkat, what did he have? Another ten sweeps, if that? No one knew how long his mutant blood would hold out. Surely not longer than that. No where near long enough.

It was a rule, an unspoken rule, that one was careful with who they took as their matesprits. It was wrong, for instance, for an old brown blood to accept an indigo's red advances if they were young. Even if they were fated to red romance, you spared them the actual living of it. Because it was plain wrong to bring someone into a matespritship knowing you had so little time. It was too painful for both parties. Knowing that you were bringing your matesprit to sorrow so quickly was frowned upon. After all, you could always get a new moirail, a new kismesis, and new auspitice, but matesprits, those were rare. You feigned them along the way for the sake of the imperial drones, but there would only ever be one in that place in your heart. Maybe two if you were lucky and longer lived. There was a reason, after all, that highbloods were discouraged from taking lowbloods as matesprits unless they were later in life. Sure, it happened, there was no way to avoid it, but it was seen as cheating the person you claimed as your fated partner.

It meant, plain and simply, that ten sweeps, if that, would never be enough. Dave deserved more than that, far more than that. He deserved Terezi. She'd have so many more sweeps to share with him, if they all got through this. Okay, so maybe getting through this didn't seem so likely, but that didn't mean that he shouldn't treat this all like they would. Like they would destroy Jack and whatever 'greater evil big bad' Rose said was really pulling the strings on everything. It was something he needed to believe. Needed to believe because otherwise what was the point in refusing to try and pursue Dave in a red kind of way?

Besides, Karkat had already decided, half a sweep ago, that he wasn't going to let Dave do something stupid and get himself killed. Because it would be just like that asshat to go off and do something like that. To let himself die a heroic death to save another, and Karkat wasn't going to have any of that. If one of the Knights had to die for the sake of others, better it be a worthless piece of lusus excrement like himself.

If that was the only thing he could give Dave, well then he'd give it without hesitation. He'd build them up blacker than the depths of Gamzee's soul to make the parting easy, and he'd die so Dave could live.

Because it was the only way. A truth as simple and true as it was complex and painful.

He could never win Dave's heart, so he was sure as hell going to make sure it kept beating.


End file.
